It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against anotherhill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stopitself, just as it does on this side.

It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, largecountry town,--in fact, it has some time since come under cityregulations,--thinking sufficiently well of itself, and, for thatwhich it lacks, only twenty miles from the metropolis.

Up our hill straggle the more ambitious houses, that have shaken offthe dust from their feet, or their foundations, and surroundedthemselves with green grass, and are shaded with trees, and are called"places." There are the Marchbanks places, and the "Haddens," and theold Pennington place. At these houses they dine at five o'clock, whenthe great city bankers and merchants come home in the afternoon train;down in the town, where people keep shops, or doctors' or lawyers'offices, or manage the Bank, and where the manufactories are, they eatat one, and have long afternoons; and the schools keep twice a day.

We lived in the town--that is, Mr. and Mrs. Holabird did, and theirchildren, for such length of the time as their ages allowed--fornineteen years; and then we moved to Westover, and this story began.

They called it "Westover," more or less, years and years before; whenthere were no houses up the hill at all; only farm lands and pastures,and a turnpike road running straight up one side and down the other,in the sun. When anybody had need to climb over the crown, to get tothe fields on this side, they called it "going west over"; and so camethe name.

We always thought it was a pretty, sunsetty name; but it isn'tconsidered quite so fine to have a house here as to have it below thebrow. When you get up sufficiently high, in any sense, you begin to godown again. Or is it that people can't be distinctively genteel, ifthey get so far away from the common as no longer to well overlook it?

Grandfather Holabird--old Mr. Rufus,--I don't say whether he was mygrandfather or not, for it doesn't matter which Holabird tells thisstory, or whether it is a Holabird at all--bought land here ever somany years ago, and built a large, plain, roomy house; and here theboys grew up,--Roderick and Rufus and Stephen and John.

Roderick went into the manufactory with his father,--who had himselfcome up from being a workman to being owner,--and learned thebusiness, and made money, and married a Miss Bragdowne from C----, andlived on at home. Rufus married and went away, and died when he wasyet a young man. His wife went home to her family, and there were nolittle children. John lives in New York, and has two sons and threedaughters.

There are of us--Stephen Holabird's family--just six. Stephen and hiswife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs.Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousinsmarried two sisters. She came here when she had neither father normother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because"Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own"; but ofcourse, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, onthe mere claim of the common cousinship.

Ruth Holabird is a quiet little body, but she has her own particularways too.

There is one thing different in our house from most others. We are allknown by our straight names. I say _known_; because we do have littlepet ways of calling, among ourselves,--sometimes one way and sometimesanother; but we don't let these get out of doors much. Mr. Holabirddoesn't like it. So though up stairs, over our sewing, or ourbed-making, or our dressing, we shorten or sweeten, or make a littlefun,--though Rose of the world gets translated, if she looks orbehaves rather specially nice, or stays at the glass trying to do thefirst,--or Barbara gets only "Barb" when she is sharper than common,or Stephen is "Steve" when he's a dear, and "Stiff" when he'sobstinate,--we always _introduce_ "my daughter Rosamond," or "mysister Barbara," or,--but Ruth of course never gets nicknamed, becausenothing could be easier or pleasanter than just "Ruth,"--and Stephenis plain strong Stephen, because he is a boy and is expected to be aman some time. Nobody writes to us, or speaks of us, except as we werechristened. This is only rather a pity for Rosamond. Rose Holabird issuch a pretty name. "But it will keep," her mother tells her. "Shewouldn't want to be everybody's Rose."

Our moving to Westover was a great time.

That was because we had to move the house; which is what everybodydoes not do who moves into a house by any means.

We were very much astonished when Grandfather Holabird came in andtold us, one morning, of his having bought it,--the empty Beamanhouse, that nobody had lived in for five years. The Haddens had boughtthe land for somebody in their family who wanted to come out andbuild, and so the old house was to be sold and moved away; and nobodybut old Mr. Holabird owned land near enough to put it upon. For it waslarge and solid-built, and could not be taken far.

We were a great deal more astonished when he came in again, anotherday, and proposed that we should go and live in it.

We were all a good deal afraid of Grandfather Holabird. He had verystrict ideas of what people ought to do about money. Or rather of whatthey ought to do _without_ it, when they didn't happen to have any.

Mrs. Stephen pulled down the green blinds when she saw him coming thatday,--him and his cane. Barbara said she didn't exactly know which itwas she dreaded; she thought she could bear the cane without him, oreven him without the cane; but both together were "_scare-mendous_;they did put down so."

Mrs. Holabird pulled down the blinds, because he would be sure tonotice the new carpet the first thing; it was a cheap ingrain, and theold one had been all holes, so that Barbara had proposed putting up aboard at the door,--"Private way; dangerous passing." And we had allmade over our three winters' old cloaks this year, for the sake of it:and we hadn't got the carpet then till the winter was half over. Butwe couldn't tell all this to Grandfather Holabird. There was nevertime for the whole of it. And he knew that Mr. Stephen was troubledjust now for his rent and taxes. For Stephen Holabird was the one inthis family who couldn't make, or couldn't manage, money. There isalways one. I don't know but it is usually the best one of all, inother ways.

Stephen Holabird is a good man, kind and true; loving to live agentle, thoughtful life, in his home and among his books; not made forthe din and scramble of business.

He never looks to his father; his father does not believe in allowinghis sons to look to him; so in the terrible time of '57, when the lossand the worry came, he had to struggle as long as he could, and thengo down with the rest, paying sixty cents on the dollar of all hisdebts, and beginning again, to try and earn the forty, and to feed andclothe his family meanwhile.

Grandfather Holabird sent us down all our milk, and once a week, whenhe bought his Sunday dinner, he would order a turkey for us. In thesummer, we had all the vegetables we wanted from his garden, and atThanksgiving a barrel of cranberries from his meadow. But theseobliged us to buy an extra half-barrel of sugar. For all these thingswe made separate small change of thanks, each time, and were all themore afraid of his noticing our new gowns or carpets.

"When you haven't any money, don't buy anything," was his sternprecept.

"When you're in the Black Hole, don't breathe," Barbara would say,after he was gone.

But then we thought a good deal of Grandfather Holabird, for all. Thatday, when he came in and astonished us so, we were all as busy and ascosey as we could be.

Mrs. Holabird was making a rug of the piece of the new carpet that hadbeen cut out for the hearth, bordering it with a strip of shag.Rosamond was inventing a feather for her hat out of the best of an oldblack-cock plume, and some bits of beautiful downy white ones withsmooth tips, that she brought forth out of a box.

"What are they, Rose? And where did you get them?" Ruth asked,wondering.

"They were dropped,--and I picked them up," Rosamond answered,mysteriously. "The owner never missed them."

"Don't you ever let anybody know it was hens! Never cackle aboutcontrivances. Things mustn't be contrived; they must happen. Woman andher accidents,--mine are usually catastrophes."

Rosamond was so busy fastening in the plume, and giving it the rightset-up, that she talked a little delirium of nonsense.

Barbara flung down a magazine,--some old number.

"Just as they were putting the very tassel on to the cap of theclimax, the page is torn out! What do you want, little cat?" she wenton to her pussy, that had tumbled out of her lap as she got up, andwas stretching and mewing. "Want to go out doors and play, little cat?Well, you can. There's plenty of room out of doors for two littlecats!" And going to the door with her, she met grandfather and thecane coming in.

There was time enough for Mrs. Holabird to pull down the blinds, andfor Ruth to take a long, thinking look out from under hers, throughthe sash of window left unshaded; for old Mr. Holabird and his canewere slow; the more awful for that.

Ruth thought to herself, "Yes; there is plenty of room out of doors;and yet people crowd so! I wonder why we can't live bigger!"

[Illustration]

Mrs. Holabird's thinking was something like it.

"Five hundred dollars to worry about, for what is set down upon a fewsquare yards of 'out of doors.' And inside of that, a great contrivingand going without, to put something warm underfoot over the sixteensquare feet that we live on most!"

She had almost a mind to pull up the blinds again; it was such a verylittle matter, the bit of new carpet, after all.

"How do I know what they were thinking?" Never mind. People do know,or else how do they ever tell stories? We know lots of things that we_don't_ tell all the time. We don't stop to think whether we knowthem or not; but they are underneath the things we feel, and thethings we do.

Grandfather came in, and said over the same old stereotypes. He had away of saying them, so that we knew just what was coming, sentenceafter sentence. It was a kind of family psalter. What it all meantwas, "I've looked in to see you, and how you are getting along. I dothink of you once in a while." And our worn-out responses were, "It'svery good of you, and we're much obliged to you, as far as it goes."

It was only just as he got up to leave that he said the real thing.When there was one, he always kept it to the last.

"Your lease is up here in May, isn't it, Mrs. Stephen?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm going to move over that Beaman house next month, as soon as thearound settles. I thought it might suit you, perhaps, to come and livein it. It would be handier about a good many things than it is now.Stephen might do something to his piece, in a way of small farming.I'd let him have the rent for three years. You can talk it over."

He turned round and walked right out. Nobody thanked him or said aword. We were too much surprised.

Mother spoke first; after we had hushed up Stephen, who shouted.

I shall call her "mother," now; for it always seems as if that were awoman's real name among her children. Mr. Holabird was apt to call herso himself. She did not altogether like it, always, from him. Sheasked him once if "Emily" were dead and buried. She had tried to keepher name herself, she said; that was the reason she had not given itto either of her daughters. It was a good thing to leave to agrandchild; but she could not do without it as long as she lived.

"We could keep a cow!" said mother.

"We could have a pony!" cried Stephen, utterly disregarded.

"What does he want to move it quite over for?" asked Rosamond. "Hisland begins this side."

"Rosamond wants so to get among the Hill people! Pray, why can't wehave a colony of our own?" said Barbara, sharply and proudly.

"I should think it would be less trouble," said Rosamond, quietly, incontinuation of her own remark; holding up, as she spoke, her finishedhat upon her hand. Rosamond aimed at being truly elegant. She wouldnever discuss, directly, any questions of our position, or ourlimitations.

"Does that look--"

"Holabirdy?" put in Barbara. "No. Not a bit. Things that you do neverdo."

Rosamond felt herself flush up. Alice Marchbanks had said once, ofsomething that we wore, which was praised as pretty, that it "mightbe, but it was Holabirdy." Rosamond found it hard to forget that.

"I beg your pardon, Rose. It's just as pretty as it can be; and Idon't mean to tease you," said Barbara, quickly. "But _I do_ mean tobe proud of being Holabirdy, just as long as there's a piece of thename left."

"I wish we hadn't bought the new carpet now," said mother. "And what_shall_ we do about all those other great rooms? It will take readymoney to move. I'm afraid we shall have to cut it off somewhere elsefor a while. What if it should be the music, Ruth?"

That did go to Ruth's heart. She tried so hard to be willing that shedid not speak at first.

"'Open and shet is a sign of more wet!'" cried Barbara. "I don'tbelieve there ever was a family that had so _much_ opening andshetting! We just get a little squeak out of a crack, and it goestogether again and snips our noses!"

"What _is_ a 'squeak' out of a crack?" said Rosamond, laughing. "Amouse pinched in it, I should think."

Barbara had a way of putting heads and tails together, in defiance--inaid, as she maintained--of the dictionaries.

"O, I can practise," Ruth said, cheerily. "It will be so bright outthere, and the mornings will be so early!"

"That's just what they won't be, particularly," said Barbara, "seeingwe're going 'west over.'"

"Well, then, the afternoons will be long. It is all the same," saidRuth. That was the best she could do.

"Mother," said Rosamond, "I've been thinking. Get grandfather to havesome of the floors stained. I think rugs, and English druggets, putdown with brass-headed nails, in the middle, are delightful.Especially for a country house."

"It seems, then, we _are_ going?"

Nobody had even raised a question of that.

Nobody raised a question when Mr. Holabird came in. He himself raisednone. He sat and listened to all the propositions and corollaries,quite as one does go through the form of demonstration of ageometrical fact patent at first glance.

"We can have a cow," mother repeated.

"Or a dog, at any rate," put in Stephen, who found it hard to get ahearing.

"You can have a garden, father," said Barbara. "It's to be near to theparcel of ground that Rufus gave to his son Stephen."

"I don't like to have you quote Scripture so," said father, gravely.

"I don't," said Barbara. "It quoted itself. And it isn't there either.I don't know of a Rufus in all sacred history. And there aren't manyin profane."

"Somebody was the 'father of Alexander and Rufus'; and there's a Rufus'saluted' at the end of an epistle."

"Ruth is sure to catch one, if one's out in Scripture. But that isn'thistory; that's mere mention."

"And we can tell _the girl_ to come 'over,' instead of 'up,' whenshe's to fetch us home from a tea-drinking That will be one of the'handy' things."

"Girl! we shall have a man, if we have a garden." This was betweenthe two.

"Mayhap," said Barbara. "And perlikely a wheel-barrow."

"We shall all have to remember that it will only be living thereinstead of here," said father, cautiously, putting up an umbrellaunder the rain of suggestion.

The umbrella settled the question of the weather, however. There wasno doubt about it after that. Mother calculated measurements, and itwas found out, between her and the girls, that the six muslin curtainsin our double town parlor would be lovely for the six windows in thesquare Beaman best room. Also that the parlor carpet would make over,and leave pieces for rugs for some of our delightful stained floors.The little tables, and the two or three brackets, and the fewpictures, and other art-ornaments, that only "strinkled," Barbarasaid, in two rooms, would be charmingly "crowsy" in one. And up stairsthere would be such nice space for cushioning and flouncing, andmaking upholstery out of nothing, that you couldn't do here, becausein these spyglass houses the sleeping-rooms were all bedstead, andfireplace, and closet doors.

They were left to their uninterrupted feminine speculations, for Mr.Holabird had put on his hat and coat again, and gone off west over tosee his father; and Stephen had "piled" out into the kitchen, tocommunicate his delight to Winifred, with whom he was on terms of akind of odd-glove intimacy, neither of them having in the house anyprecisely matched companionship.

This ought to have been foreseen, and an embargo put on; for it ledto trouble. By the time the green holland shades were apportioned totheir new places, and an approximate estimate reached of the wholenumber of windows to be provided, Winny had made up her gregariousmind that she could not give up her town connection, and go out tolive in "such a fersaakunness"; and as any remainder of time is toIrish valuation like the broken change of a dollar, when the whole canno longer be counted on, she gave us warning next morning at breakfastthat she "must just be lukkin out fer a plaashe."

"But," said mother, in her most conciliatory way, "it must be two orthree months, Winny, before we move, if we do go; and I should be gladto have you stay and help us through."

"Ah, sure, I'd do annything to hilp yiz through; an' I'm sure, I taksan intheresht in yiz ahl, down to the little cat hersel'; an' indeed Iniver tuk an intheresht in anny little cat but that little cat; but Icouldn't go live where it wud be so loahnsome, an' I can't be out oo aplaashe, ye see."

It was no use talking; it was only transposing sentences; she "tuk agraat intheresht in us, an' sure she'd do annything to hilp us, butshe must just be lukkin out fer hersel'." And that very day she hadthe kitchen scrubbed up at a most unwonted hour, and her best bonneton,--a rim of flowers and lace, with a wide expanse--of ungarnishedhead between it and the chignon it was supposed to accommodate,--andtook her "afternoon out" to search for some new situation, wherepeople were subject neither to sickness nor removals nor company norchildren nor much of anything; and where, under these circumstances,and especially if there were "set tubs, and hot and cold water," shewould probably remain just about as long as her "intheresht" would_not_ allow of her continuing with us.

A kitchen exodus is like other small natural commotions,--sure tohappen when anything greater does. When the sun crosses the line wehave a gale down below.

"_Now_ what shall we do?" asked Mrs. Holabird, forlornly, coming backinto the sitting-room out of that vacancy in the farther apartmentswhich spreads itself in such a still desertedness of feeling allthrough the house.

"Just what we've done before, motherums!" said Barbara, more bravelythan she felt. "The next one is somewhere. Like Tupper's 'wife of thyyouth,' she must be 'now living upon the earth.' In fact, I don'tdoubt there's a long line of them yet, threaded in and out among therest of humanity, all with faces set by fate toward our back door.There's always a coming woman, in that direction at least."

"I would as lief come across the staying one," said Mrs. Holabird,with meekness.

It cooled down our enthusiasm. Stephen, especially, was very muchquenched.

The next one was not only somewhere, but everywhere, it seemed, andnowhere. "Everything by turns and nothing long," Barbara wrote up overthe kitchen chimney with the baker's chalk. We had five girls betweenthat time and our moving to Westover, and we had to move without agirl at last; only getting a woman in to do days' work. But I have notcome to the family-moving yet.

The house-moving was the pretty part. Every pleasant afternoon, whilethe building was upon the rollers, we walked over, and went up intoall the rooms, and looked out of every window, noting what newpictures they gave as the position changed from day to day; how nowthis tree and now that shaded them: how we gradually came to see bythe end of the Haddens' barn, and at last across it,--for the slope,though gradual, was long,--and how the sunset came in more and more,as we squared toward the west; and there was always a thrill ofexcitement when we felt under us, as we did again and again, theonward momentary surge of the timbers, as the workmen brought allrightly to bear, and the great team of oxen started up. Stephen calledthese earthquakes.

We found places, day by day, where it would be nice to stop. It wassuch a funny thing to travel along in a house that might stopanywhere, and thenceforward belong. Only, in fact, it couldn't;because, like some other things that seem a matter of choice, it wasall pre-ordained; and there was a solid stone foundation waiting overon the west side, where grandfather meant it to be.

We got little new peeps at the southerly hills, in the fresh breaksbetween trees and buildings that we went by. As we reached the broad,open crown, we saw away down beyond where it was still and woodsy; andthe nice farm-fields of Grandfather Holabird's place looked sunny andpleasant and real countrified.

It was not a steep eminence on either side; if it had been the greathouse could not have been carried over as it was. It was a grandgenerous swell of land, lifting up with a slow serenity into pure airsand splendid vision. We did not know, exactly, where the highestpoint had been; but as we came on toward the little walled-inexcavation which seemed such a small mark to aim at, and one which wemight so easily fail to hit after all, we saw how behind us rose thegreen bosom of the field against the sky, and how, day by day, we gotless of the great town within our view as we settled down upon ourside of the ridge.

The air was different here, it was full of hill and pasture.

There were not many trees immediately about the spot where we were tobe; but a great group of ashes and walnuts stood a little way downagainst the roadside, and all around in the far margins of the fieldswere beautiful elms, and round maples that would be globes of fire inautumn days, and above was the high blue glory of the unobstructedsky.

The ground fell off suddenly into a great hill-dimple, just where thewalls were laid; that was why Grandfather Holabird had chosen thespot. There could be a cellar-kitchen; and it had been needful for themoving, that all the rambling, outrunning L, which had held thekitchens and woodsheds before, should be cut off and disposed of asmere lumber. It was only the main building--L-shaped still, of threevery large rooms below and five by more subdivision above--which hadmajestically taken up its line of march, like the star of empire,westward. All else that was needful must be rebuilt.

Mother did not like a cellar-kitchen. It would be inconvenient withone servant. But Grandfather Holabird had planned the house before heoffered it to us to live in. What we were going to save in rent wemust take out cheerfully in extra steps.

It was in the bright, lengthening days of April, when the bluebirdscame fluttering out of fairy-land, that the old house finally stopped,and stood staring around it with its many eyes,--wide open to thedaylight, all its green winkers having been taken off,--to see whereit was and was likely to be for the rest of its days. It had a veryknowing look, we thought, like a house that had seen the world.

The sun walked round it graciously, if not inquisitively. He flashedin at the wide parlor windows and the rooms overhead, as soon as hegot his brow above the hill-top. Then he seemed to sidle roundsouthward, not slanting wholly out his morning cheeriness until thenoonday glory slanted in. At the same time he began with thesitting-room opposite, through the one window behind; and then throughthe long, glowing afternoon, the whole bright west let him in alongthe full length of the house, till he just turned the last corner, andpeeped in, on the longest summer days, at the very front. This waswhat he had got so far as to do by the time we moved in,--as if hestretched his very neck to find out the last there was to learn aboutit, and whether nowhere in it were really yet any human life. Hequieted down in his mind, I suppose, when from morning to night hefound somebody to beam at, and a busy doing in every room. He took itserenely then, as one of the established things upon the earth, andput us in the regular list of homes upon his round, that he was toleave so many cubic feet of light at daily.

I think he _might_ like to look in at that best parlor. With the sixsnowy-curtained windows, it was like a great white blossom; and thedeep-green carpet and the walls with vine-leaves running all overthem, in the graceful-patterned paper that Rosamond chose, were likethe moss and foliage among which it sprung. Here and there the lightglinted upon gilded frame or rich bronze or pure Parian, and threw outthe lovely high tints, and deepened the shadowy effects, of our fewfine pictures. We had little of art, but that little was choice. Itwas Mr. Holabird's weakness, when money was easy with him, to bringhome straws like these to the home nest. So we had, also, a good manynice books; for, one at a time, when there was no hurrying bill to bepaid, they had not seemed much to buy; and in our brown room, where wesat every day, and where our ivies had kindly wonted themselvesalready to the broad, bright windows, there were stands and cases wellfilled, and a great round family table in the middle, whose worn clothhid its shabbiness under the comfort of delicious volumes ready to thehand, among which, central of all, stood the Shekinah of thehome-spirit,--a tall, large-globed lamp that drew us cosily into itsround of radiance every night.

Not these June nights though. I will tell you presently what the Junenights were at Westover.

We worked hard in those days, but we were right blithe about it. Wehad at last got an Irish girl from "far down,"--that is their word forthe north country at home, and the north country is where the bestmaterial comes from,--who was willing to air her ignorance in ourkitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, forthe modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could notcome indeed for less," said the friend who brought her. "All the girlswas gettin' that." She had never seen dipped toast, and she "couldn'tdo starched clothes very skilful"; but these things had nothing to dowith established rates of wages.

But who cared, when it was June, and the smell of green grass and thesinging of birds were in the air, and everything indoors was clean,and fresh with the wonderful freshness of things set every one in anew place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the thingswere old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busyrush, at door or window, to see joyfully and exclaim with ecstasy howgrandly and exquisitely Nature was furbishing up her beautiful oldthings also,--a million for one sweet touches outside, for ours in.

"Westover is no longer an adverbial phrase, even qualifying the verb'to go,'" said Barbara, exultingly, looking abroad upon the familysettlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building."It is an undoubted substantive proper, and takes a preposition beforeit, except when it is in the nominative case."

Because of the cellar-kitchen, there was a high piazza built up to thesitting-room windows on the west, which gradually came to theground-level along the front. Under this was the woodshed. The piazzawas open, unroofed: only at the front door was a wide covered portico,from which steps went down to the gravelled entrance. A light lowrailing ran around the whole.

Here we had those blessed country hours of day-done, when it was rightand lawful to be openly idle in this world, and to look over throughthe beautiful evening glooms to neighbor worlds, that showed always around of busy light, and yet seemed somehow to keep holiday-time withus, and to be only out at play in the spacious ether.

We used to think of the sunset all the day through, wondering what newglory it would spread for us, and gathering eagerly to see, as for thewitnessing of a pageant.

The moon was young, for our first delight; and the evening planet hungclose by; they dropped down through the gold together, till theytouched the very rim of the farthest possible horizon; when they slidsilently beneath, we caught our suspended breath.

[Illustration]

"But the curtain isn't down," said Barbara, after a hush.

No. The great scene was all open, still. Wide from north to southstretched the deep, sweet heaven, full of the tenderest tints andsoftliest creeping shadows; the tree-fringes stood up against it; thegentle winds swept through, as if creatures winged, invisible, wentby; touched, one by one, with glory, the stars burned on the blue; wewatched as if any new, unheard-of wonder might appear; we looked outinto great depths that narrow daylight shut us in from. Daylight wasthe curtain.

"Pho! You'll get used to it," answered Stephen, as if he knew humannature, and had got used himself to most things.

CHAPTER II.

AMPHIBIOUS.

"What day of the month is it?" asked Mrs. Holabird, looking up fromher letter.

Ruth told.

"How do you always know the day of the month?" said Rosamond. "You areas pat as the almanac. I have to stop and think whether anythingparticular has happened, to remember _any_ day by, since the first,and then count up. So, as things don't happen much out here, I'm neversure of anything except that it can't be more than the thirty-first;and as to whether it can be that, I have to say over the old rhyme inmy head."

"I know how she tells," spoke up Stephen. "It's that thing up in herroom,--that pious thing that whops over. It has the figures down atthe bottom; and she whops it every morning."

"Yes,--but about the whopping. And the figures are the smallest partof the difference. You're a pretty noticing boy, Steve."

Steve colored a little, and his eye twinkled. He saw that Ruth hadcaught him out.

"I guess you set it for a goody-trap," he said. "Folks can't helpreading sign-boards when they go by. And besides, it's like the manthat went to Van Amburgh's. I shall catch you forgetting, some fineday, and then I'll whop the whole over for you."

Ruth had been mending stockings, and was just folding up the lastpair. She did not say any more, for she did not want to tease Stephenin her turn; but there was a little quiet smile just under her lipsthat she kept from pulling too hard at the corners, as she got up andwent away with them to her room.

She stopped when she got to the open door of it, with her basket inher hand, and looked in from the threshold at the hanging scroll ofScripture texts printed in large clear letters,--a sheet for each dayof the month,--and made to fold over and drop behind the black-walnutrod to which they were bound. It had been given her by her teacher atthe Bible Class,--Mrs. Ingleside; and Ruth loved Mrs. Ingleside verymuch.

Then she went to her bureau, and put her stockings in their drawer,and set the little basket, with its cotton-ball and darner, andmaplewood egg, and small sharp scissors, on the top; and then she wentand sat down by the window, in her white considering-chair.

For she had something to think about this morning.

Ruth's room had three doors. It was the middle room up stairs, in thebeginning of the L. Mrs. Holabird's opened into it from the front, andjust opposite her door another led into the large, light corner roomat the end, which Rosamond and Barbara occupied. Stephen's was on theother side of the three-feet passage which led straight through fromthe front staircase to the back of the house. The front staircase wasa broad, low-stepped, old-fashioned one, with a landing half-way up;and it was from this landing that a branch half-flight came into theL, between these two smaller bedrooms. Now I have begun, I may as welltell you all about it; for, if you are like me, you will be glad to betaken fairly into a house you are to pay a visit in, and find out allthe pleasantnesses of it, and whom they especially belong to.

Ruth's room was longest across the house, and Stephen's with it;behind his was only the space taken by some closets and the square ofstaircase beyond. This staircase had landings also, and was lighted bya window high up in the wall. Behind Ruth's, as I have said, was thewhole depth of a large apartment. But as the passage divided the Lunequally, it gave the rooms similar space and shape, only at rightangles to each other.

The sun came into Stephen's room in the morning, and into Ruth's inthe afternoon; in the middle of the day the passage was one longshine, from its south window at the end, right through,--except insuch days as these, that were too deep in the summer to bear it, andthen the green blinds were shut all around, and the warm wind drewthrough pleasantly in a soft shade.

When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the largefront rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as ifthere were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands andbureaus,--the very things that make up-stairs look so _very_ bedroomy.And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always do. Rosamondand Barbara made a box-sofa, fitted luxuriously with old pew-cushionssewed together, and a crib mattress cut in two and fashioned into seatand pillows; and a packing-case dressing-table, flounced with a skirtof white cross-barred muslin that Ruth had outgrown. In exchange forthis Ruth bargained for the dimity curtains that had furnished theirtwo windows before, and would not do for the three they had now.

Then she shut herself up one day in her room, and made them all goround by the hall and passage, back and forth; and worked awaymysteriously till the middle of the afternoon, when she unfastened allthe doors again and set them wide, as they have for the most partremained ever since, in the daytimes; thus rendering Ruth's doings andways particularly patent to the household, and most conveniently opento the privilege and second sight of story-telling.

The white dimity curtains--one pair of them--were up at the wide westwindow; the other pair was cut up and made over into three or fourthings,--drapery for a little old pine table that had come to lightamong attic lumber, upon which she had tacked it in neat plaitingsaround the sides, and overlapped it at the top with a plain hemmedcover of the same; a great discarded toilet-cushion freshly encasedwith more of it, and edged with magic ruffling; the stained top andtied-up leg of a little disabled teapoy, kindly disguised inuniform,--varied only with a narrow stripe of chintz trimming incrimson arabesque,--made pretty with piles of books, and the Scripturescroll hung above it with its crimson cord and tassels; and in thewindow what she called afterward her "considering-chair," and in whichshe sat this morning; another antique, clothed purely from head tofoot and made comfortable beneath with stout bagging nailed across,over the deficient cane-work.

Tin tacks and some considerable machining--for mother had lent her thehelp of her little "common sense" awhile--had done it all; and Ruth'sroom, with its oblong of carpet,--which Mrs. Holabird and she had madeout before, from the brightest breadths of her old dove-colored oneand a bordering of crimson Venetian, of which there had not beenenough to put upon the staircase,--looked, as Barbara said, "just asif it had been done on purpose."

"It _says_ it all, anyhow, doesn't it?" said Ruth.

Ruth was delightedly satisfied with it,--with its situation above all;she liked to nestle in, in the midst of people; and she never mindedtheir coming through, any more than they minded her slipping her threelittle brass bolts when she had a desire to.

She sat down in her considering-chair to-day, to think about AdelaideMarchbanks's invitation.

The two Marchbanks houses were very gay this summer. The marrieddaughter of one family--Mrs. Reyburne--was at home from New York, andhad brought a very fascinating young Mrs. Van Alstyne with her. RogerMarchbanks, at the other house, had a couple of college friendsvisiting him; and both places were merry with young girls,--severalsisters in each family,--always. The Haddens were there a good deal,and there were people from the city frequently, for a few days at atime. Mrs. Linceford was staying at the Haddens, and LeslieGoldthwaite, a great pet of hers,--Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's daughter,in the town,--was often up among them all.

The Holabirds were asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now andthen, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they werenot on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others wereamong themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of their lifewould not allow it. The "jolly times" on the Hill were a kind ofElf-land to them, sometimes patent and free, sometimes shrouded in theimpalpable and impassable mist that shuts in the fairy region when itwills to be by itself for a time.

There was one little simple sesame which had a power this way forthem, perhaps without their thinking of it; certainly it was notspoken of directly when the invitations were given and accepted.Ruth's fingers had a little easy, gladsome knack at music; and Isuppose sometimes it was only Ruth herself who realized howthoroughly the fingers earned the privilege of the rest of her bodilypresence. She did not mind; she was as happy playing as Rosamond andBarbara dancing; it was all fair enough; everybody must be wanted forsomething; and Ruth knew that her music was her best thing. She wishedand meant it to be; Ruth had plans in her head which her fingers wereto carry out.

But sometimes there was a slight flavor in attention, that was notquite palatable, even to Ruth's pride. These three girls had each herown sort of dignity. Rosamond's measured itself a good deal by theaccepted dignity of others; Barbara's insisted on its own standard;why shouldn't they--the Holabirds--settle anything? Ruth hated to havetheirs hurt; and she did not like subserviency, or courting favor. Sothis morning she was partly disturbed and partly puzzled by what hadhappened.

Adelaide Marchbanks had overtaken her on the hill, on her way "downstreet" to do some errand, and had walked on with her very affably.At parting she had said to her, in an off-hand, by-the-way fashion,--

"Ruth, why won't you come over to-night, and take tea? I should likeyou to hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing, and she would like your playing.There won't be any company; but we're having pretty good times nowamong ourselves."

Ruth knew what the "no company" meant; just that there was no regularinviting, and so no slight in asking her alone, out of her family; butshe knew the Marchbanks parlors were always full of an evening, andthat the usual set would be pretty sure to get together, and that theend of it all would be an impromptu German, for which she shouldplay, and that the Marchbanks's man would be sent home with her ateleven o'clock.

She only thanked Adelaide, and said she "didn't know,--perhaps; butshe hardly thought she could to-night; they had better not expecther," and got away without promising. She was thinking it over now.

She did not want to be stiff and disobliging; and she would like tohear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing. If it were only for herself, she wouldvery likely think it a reasonable "quid pro quo," and modestlyacknowledge that she had no claim to absolutely gratuitous compliment.She would remember higher reason, also, than the _quid pro quo_; shewould try to be glad in this little special "gift of ministering"; butit puzzled her about the others. How would they feel about it? Wouldthey like it, her being asked so? Would they think she ought to go?And what if she were to get into this way of being asked alone?--shethe very youngest; not "in society" yet even as much as Rose andBarbara; though Barbara said _they_ "never 'came' out,--they justleaked out."

That was it; that would not do; she must not leak out, away from them,with her little waltz ripples; if there were any small help or powerof hers that could be counted in to make them all more valued, shewould not take it from the family fund and let it be counted alone toher sole credit. It must go with theirs. It was little enough that shecould repay into the household that had given itself to her like aborn home.

She thought she would not even ask Mrs. Holabird anything about it, asat first she meant to do.

But Mrs. Holabird had a way of coming right into things. "We girls"means Mrs. Holabird as much as anybody. It was always "we girls" inher heart, since girls' mothers never can quite lose the girl out ofthemselves; it only multiplies, and the "everlasting nominative" turnsinto a plural.

Ruth still sat in her white chair, with her cheek on her hand and herelbow on the window-ledge, looking out across the pleasant swell ofgrass to where they were cutting the first hay in old Mr. Holabird'sfive-acre field, the click of the mowing-machine sounding like somenew, gigantic kind of grasshopper, chirping its tremendous lazinessupon the lazy air, when mother came in from the front hall, throughher own room and saw her there.

Mrs. Holabird never came through the rooms without a fresh thrill ofpleasantness. Her home had _expressed_ itself here, as it had neverdone anywhere else. There was something in the fair, open, sunshinyroominess and cosey connection of these apartments, hers and herdaughters', in harmony with the largeness and cheeriness and clearnessin which her love and her wish for them held them always.

It was more glad than grand; and she aimed at no grandness; but thegenerous space was almost splendid in its effect, as you lookedthrough, especially to her who had lived and contrived in a "spy-glasshouse" so long.

The doors right through from front to back, and the wide windows ateither end and all the way, gave such sweep and light; also the longmirrors, that had been from time unrememberable over the mantels inthe town parlors, in the old, useless, horizontal style, and were hereput, quite elegantly tall,--the one in Mrs. Holabird's room above herdaintily appointed dressing-table (which was only two great squaretrunks full of blankets, that could not be stowed away anywhere else,dressed up in delicate-patterned chintz and set with her boxes andcushions and toilet-bottles), and the other, in "the girls' room,"opposite; these made magnificent reflections and repetitions; and atnight, when they all lit their bed-candles, and vibrated back andforth with their last words before they shut their doors and subsided,gave a truly festival and illuminated air to the whole mansion; sothat Mrs. Roderick would often ask, when she came in of a morning intheir busiest time, "Did you have company last night? I saw you wereall lit up."

"About going over to the Marchbanks's to-night. Don't say anything,though. I thought they needn't have asked me just to play. And theymight have asked somebody with me. Of course it would have been as yousaid, if I'd wanted to; but I've made up my mind I--needn't. I mean, Iknew right off that I _didn't_."

Ruth did talk a funny idiom of her own when she came out of one of herthinks. But Mrs. Holabird understood. Mothers get to understand theolder idiom, just as they do baby-talk,--by the same heart-key. Sheknew that the "needn't" and the "didn't" referred to the "wanting to."

"You see, I don't think it would be a good plan to let them beginwith me so."

"You're a very sagacious little Ruth," said Mrs. Holabird,affectionately. "And a very generous one."

"No, indeed!" Ruth exclaimed at that. "I believe I think it's rathernice to settle that I _can_ be contrary. I don't like to bepat-a-caked."

She was glad, afterward, that Mrs. Holabird understood.

The next morning Elinor Hadden and Leslie Goldthwaite walked over, toask the girls to go down into the wood-hollow to get azaleas.

Rosamond and Ruth went. Barbara was busy: she was more apt to be thebusy one of a morning than Rosamond; not because Rosamond was notwilling, but that when she _was_ at leisure she looked as though shealways had been and always expected to be; she would have on a cambricmorning-dress, and a jimpsey bit of an apron, and a pair of littlefancy slippers,--(there was a secret about Rosamond's slippers; shehad half a dozen different ways of getting them up, with braiding, andbeading, and scraps of cloth and velvet; and these tops would go on toany stray soles she could get hold of, that were more sole than body,in a way she only knew of;) and she would have the sitting-room at thelast point of morning freshness,--chairs and tables and books in themost charming relative positions, and every little leaf and flower invase or basket just set as if it had so peeped up itself among theothers, and all new-born to-day. So it was her gift to be ready and toreceive. Barbara, if she really might have been dressed, would be aslikely as not to be comfortable in a sack and skirt and her"points,"--as she called her black prunella shoes, that were weak atthe heels and going at the sides, and kept their original characteronly by these embellishments upon the instep,--and to have dumpedherself down on the broad lower stair in the hall, just behind thegreen blinds of the front entrance, with a chapter to finish in someirresistible book, or a pair of stockings to mend.

Rosamond was only thankful when she was behind the scenes and wouldstay there, not bouncing into the door-way from the dining-room, withunexpected little bobs, a cake-bowl in one hand and an egg-beater inthe other, to get what she called "grabs of conversation."

Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or ifMiss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens andLeslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they _did_ have to make their own cake,and why should they be ashamed of it?"

Rosamond would reply that "they _did_ have to make their own beds, butthey could not bring them down stairs for parlor work."

"That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, shewould make up hers all over the house, just where there was the mostfun. She hated pretences, and being fine."

Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming;for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer anda very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down therein the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and tocall Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from thekitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward thebig trees.

Somebody overtook and joined them there,--somebody in a dark gray suitand bright buttons.

"Why, that," cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer,looking after them,--"that must be the brother from West Point theInglesides expected,--that young Dakie Thayne!"

It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and werewalking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had notbeen she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs.Marchbanks's?

[Illustration]

Ruth dropped a little back as she walked with him, at the moment,behind the others, along the path between the chestnut-trees.

"I don't think they quite expected me. I told Adelaide I did not thinkI could come. I am the youngest, you see," she said with a smile, "andI don't go out very much, except with my--cousins."

"Your cousins? I fancied you were all sisters."

"It is all the same," said Ruth. "And that is why I always catch mybreath a little before I say 'cousins.'"

"Couldn't they come? What a pity!" pursued this young man, who seemedbent upon driving his questions home.

"O, it wasn't an invitation, you know. It wasn't company."

"Wasn't it?"

The inflection was almost imperceptible, and quite unintentional;Dakie Thayne was very polite; but his eyebrows went up a little--justa line or two--as he said it, the light beginning to come in upon him.

Dakie had been about in the world somewhat; his two years at WestPoint were not all his experience; and he knew what queer littlewheels were turned sometimes.

He had just come to Z---- (I must have a letter for my nameless town,and I have gone through the whole alphabet for it, and picked up acrooked stick at last), and the new group of people he had got amonginterested him. He liked problems and experiments. They were what heexcelled in at the Military School. This was his first furlough; andit was since his entrance at the Academy that his brother, Dr.Ingleside, had come to Z----, to take the vacant practice of an oldphysician, disabled from continuing it.

Dakie and Leslie Goldthwaite and Mrs. Ingleside were old friends;almost as old as Mrs. Ingleside and the doctor.

Ruth Holabird had a very young girl's romance of admiration for oneolder, in her feeling toward Leslie. She had never known any one justlike her; and, in truth, Leslie was different, in some things, fromthe little world of girls about her. In the "each and all" of theirpretty groupings and pleasant relations she was like a bit of fresh,springing, delicate vine in a bouquet of bright, similarly beautifulflowers; taking little free curves and reaches of her own, just as shehad grown; not tied, nor placed, nor constrained; never the central ormost brilliant thing; but somehow a kind of life and grace that helpedand touched and perfected all.

There was something very real and individual about her; she was no"girl of the period," made up by the fashion of the day. She wouldhave grown just as a rose or a violet would, the same in the firstquarter of the century or the third. They called her "grandmotherly"sometimes, when a certain quaint primitiveness that was in her showeditself. And yet she was the youngest girl in all that set, as tosimpleness and freshness and unpretendingness, though she was in hertwentieth year now, which sounds--didn't somebody say so over myshoulder?--so very old! Adelaide Marchbanks used to say of her thatshe had "stayed fifteen."

She _looked_ real. Her bright hair was gathered up loosely, with somegraceful turn that showed its fine shining strands had all beenfreshly dressed and handled, under a wide-meshed net that lay lightlyaround her head; it was not packed and stuffed and matted and put onlike a pad or bolster, from the bump of benevolence, all over that andeverything else gentle and beautiful, down to the bend of her neck;and her dress suggested always some one simple idea which you couldtrace through it, in its harmony, at a glance; not complex andbewildering and fatiguing with its many parts and folds andfestoonings and the garnishings of every one of these. She looked moreas young women used to look before it took a lady with her dressmakerseven toilsome days to achieve a "short street suit," and the publicpromenades became the problems that they now are to the inquiringminds that are forced to wonder who stops at home and does up all thesewing, and where the hair all comes from.

Some of the girls said, sometimes, that "Leslie Goldthwaite liked tobe odd; she took pains to be." This was not true; she began with theprevailing fashion--the fundamental idea of it--always, when she had anew thing; but she modified and curtailed,--something was sure to stopher somewhere; and the trouble with the new fashions is that theynever stop. To use a phrase she had picked up a few years ago,"something always got crowded out." She had other work to do, and shemust choose the finishing that would take the shortest time; or satinfolds would cost six dollars more, and she wanted the money to usedifferently; the dress was never the first and the _must be_; so itcame by natural development to express herself, not the rampant mode;and her little ways of "dodging the dressmaker," as she called it,were sure to be graceful, as well as adroit and decided.

It was a good thing for a girl like Ruth, just growing up to questionsthat had first come to this other girl of nineteen four years ago,that this other had so met them one by one, and decided them halfunconsciously as she went along, that now, for the great puzzle of the"outside," which is setting more and more between us and our realliving, there was this one more visible, unobtrusive answer putready, and with such a charm of attractiveness, into the world.

Ruth walked behind her this morning, with Dakie Thayne, thinking how"achy" Elinor Hadden's puffs and French-blue bands, and bits ofembroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, andthe weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done forthem, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling ofLeslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off initself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figuredit. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Lesliehad said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great deal in the merebuying.

Leslie and Ruth got together in the wood-hollow, where the littlevines and ferns began. Leslie was quick to spy the bits of creepingMitchella, and the wee feathery fronds that hid away their miniaturegrace under the feet of their taller sisters. They were so pretty toput in shells, and little straight tube-vases. Dakie Thayne helpedRose and Elinor to get the branches of white honeysuckle that grewhigher up.

Rose walked with the young cadet, the arms of both filled with thefragrant-flowering stems, as they came up homeward again. She was fullof bright, pleasant chat. It just suited her to spend a morning so, asif there were no rooms to dust and no tables to set, in all the greatsunshiny world; but as if dews freshened everything, and furnishings"came," and she herself were clothed of the dawn and the breeze, likea flower. She never cared so much for afternoons, she said; of courseone had got through with the prose by that time; but "to go off likea bird or a bee right after breakfast,--that was living; that was theIrishman's blessing,--'the top o' the morn-in' till yez!'"

"Won't you come in and have some lunch?" she asked, with the mostmagnificent intrepidity, when she hadn't the least idea what therewould be to give them all if they did, as they came round under thepiazza basement, and up to the front portico.

They thanked her, no; they must get home with their flowers; and Mrs.Ingleside expected Dakie to an early dinner.

Upon which she bade them good by, standing among her great azaleabranches, and looking "awfully pretty," as Dakie Thayne saidafterward, precisely as if she had nothing else to think of.

The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in ahurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't gotthe table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead ofparallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrorswhich she detailed herself on daily duty to prevent.

Barbara stood behind the blind.

"The audacity of that!" she cried, as Rosamond came in. "I shook rightout of my points when I heard you! Old Mrs. Lovett has been here, andhas eaten up exactly the last slice of cake but one. So that's DakieThayne?"

"Yes. He's a nice little fellow. Aren't these lovely flowers?"

"O my gracious! that great six-foot cadet!"

"It doesn't matter about the feet. He's barely eighteen. But he'snice,--ever so nice."

But Mrs. Holabird kept a garnet and white striped silk skirt onpurpose to lend to Barbara. If she had _given_ it, there would havebeen the end. And among us there would generally be a muslin waist,and perhaps an overskirt. Barbara said our "overskirts" were skirtsthat were _over with_, before the new fashion came.

Barbara went to bed like a chicken, sure that in the big worldto-morrow there would be something that she could pick up.

It was a miserable plan, perhaps; but it _was_ one of our ways atWestover.

CHAPTER III.

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN.

Three things came of the Marchbanks's party for us Holabirds.

Mrs. Van Alstyne took a great fancy to Rosamond.

Harry Goldthwaite put a new idea into Barbara's head.

And Ruth's little undeveloped plans, which the facile fingers were tocarry out, received a fresh and sudden impetus.

You have thus the three heads of the present chapter.

How could any one help taking a fancy to Rosamond Holabird? In thefirst place, as Mrs. Van Alstyne said, there was the name,--"a makingfor anybody"; for names do go a great way, notwithstandingShakespeare.

It made you think of everything springing and singing and blooming andsweet. Its expression was "blossomy, nightingale-y"; atilt with gleeand grace. And that was the way she looked and seemed. If you spoke toher suddenly, the head turned as a bird's does, with a small, shy,all-alive movement; and the bright eye glanced up at you, ready tocatch electric meanings from your own. When she talked to you inreturn, she talked all over; with quiet, refined radiations of lifeand pleasure in each involuntary turn and gesture; the blossom of herface lifted and swayed like that of a flower delicately poised uponits stalk. She was _like_ a flower chatting with a breeze.

She forgot altogether, as a present fact, that she looked pretty; butshe had known it once, when she dressed herself, and been glad of it;and something lasted from the gladness just enough to keep out of herhead any painful, conscious question of how she _was_ seeming. That,and her innate sense of things proper and refined, made her mannerswhat Mrs. Van Alstyne pronounced them,--"exquisite."

That was all Mrs. Van Alstyne waited to find out. She did not go deep;hence she took quick fancies or dislikes, and a great many of them.

She got Rosamond over into a corner with herself, and they hadeverybody round them. All the people in the room were saying howlovely Miss Holabird looked to-night. For a little while that seemed agreat and beautiful thing. I don't know whether it was or not. It waspleasant to have them find it out; but she would have been just aslovely if they had not. Is a party so very particular a thing to belovely in? I wonder what makes the difference. She might have stood onthat same square of the Turkey carpet the next day and been just aspretty. But, somehow, it seemed grand in the eyes of us girls, and itmeant a great deal that it would not mean the next day, to have herstand right there, and look just so, to-night.

In the midst of it all, though, Ruth saw something that seemed to hergrander,--another girl, in another corner, looking on,--a girl with avery homely face; somebody's cousin, brought with them there. Shelooked pleased and self-forgetful, differently from Rose in herprettiness; _she_ looked as if she had put herself away, comfortablysatisfied; this one looked as if there were no self put away anywhere.Ruth turned round to Leslie Goldthwaite, who stood by.

"I do think," she said,--"don't you?--it's just the bravest andstrongest thing in the world to be awfully homely, and to know it, andto go right on and have a good time just the same;--_every day_, yousee, right through everything! I think such people must be splendidinside!"

"The most splendid person I almost ever knew was like that," saidLeslie. "And she was fifty years old too."

"Well," said Ruth, drawing a girl's long breath at the fifty years,"it was pretty much over then, wasn't it? But I think I shouldlike--just once--to look beautiful at a party!"

The best of it for Barbara had been on the lawn, before tea.

Barbara was a magnificent croquet-player. She and Harry Goldthwaitewere on one side, and they led off their whole party, goingnonchalantly through wicket after wicket, as if they could not helpit; and after they had well distanced the rest, just toling eachother along over the ground, till they were rovers together, and camedown into the general field again with havoc to the enemy, and thewhole game in their hands on their own part.

"It was a handsome thing to see, for once," Dakie Thayne said; "butthey might make much of it, for it wouldn't do to let them play on thesame side again."

It was while they were off, apart down the slope, just croqueted awayfor the time, to come up again with tremendous charge presently, thatHarry asked her if she knew the game of "ship-coil."

[Illustration]

Barbara shook her head. What was it?

"It is a pretty thing. The officers of a Russian frigate showed it tous. They play it with rings made of spliced rope; we had them plainenough, but you might make them as gay as you liked. There are tenrings, and each player throws them all at each turn. The object is tostring them up over a stake, from which you stand at a certaindistance. Whatever number you make counts up for your side, and youplay as many rounds as you may agree upon."

Barbara thought a minute, and then looked up quickly.

"Have you told anybody else of that?"

"Not here. I haven't thought of it for a good while."

"Would you just please, then," said Barbara in a hurry, as somebodycame down toward them in pursuit of a ball, "to hush up, and let mehave it all to myself for a while? And then," she added, as the strayball was driven up the lawn again, and the player went away after it,"come some day and help us get it up at Westover? it's such a thing,you see, to get anything that's new."

"I see. To be sure. You shall have the State Right,--isn't that whatthey make over for patent concerns? And we'll have something famousout of it. They're getting tired of croquet, or thinking they ought tobe, which is the same thing." It was Barbara's turn now; she hit HarryGoldthwaite's ball with one of her precise little taps, and, puttingthe two beside each other with her mallet, sent them up rollickinginto the thick of the fight, where the final hand-to-hand struggle wastaking place between the last two wickets and the stake. Everybody wasthere in a bunch when she came; in a minute everybody of the opposingparty was everywhere else, and she and Harry had it between themagain. She played out two balls, and then, accidentally, her own.After one "distant, random gun," from the discomfited foe, Harryrolled quietly up against the wand, and the game was over.

It was then and there that a frank, hearty liking and alliance wasre-established between Harry Goldthwaite and Barbara, upon an oldremembered basis of ten years ago, when he had gone away to school andgiven her half his marbles for a parting keepsake,--"as he might havedone," we told her, "to any other boy."

"Ruth hasn't had a good time," said mother, softly, standing in herdoor, looking through at the girls laying away ribbons and pullingdown hair, and chattering as only girls in their teens do chatter atbedtime.

Ruth was in her white window-chair, one foot up on a cricket; and, asif she could not get into that place without her considering-fitcoming over her, she sat with her one unlaced boot in her hand, andher eyes away out over the moonlighted fields.

"She played all the evening, nearly. She always does," said Barbara.

"Why, I had a splendid time!" cried Ruth, coming down upon them out ofher cloud with flat contradiction. "And I'm sure I didn't play all theevening. Mrs. Van Alstyne sang Tennyson's 'Brook,' aunt; and the music_splashes_ so in it! It did really seem as if she were spattering itall over the room, and it wasn't a bit of matter!"

"The time was so good, then, that it has made you sober," said Mrs.Holabird, coming and putting her hand on the back of the white chair."I've known good times do that."

"It has given me ever so much thinking to do; besides that brook in myhead, 'going on forever--ever! _go_-ing-on-forever!'" And Ruth brokeinto the joyous refrain of the song as she ended.

"I shall come to you for a great long talk to-morrow morning, mother!"Ruth said again, turning her head and touching her lips to themother-hand on her chair. She did not always say "mother," you see; itwas only when she wanted a very dear word.

"We'll wind the rings with all the pretty-colored stuffs we can findin the bottomless piece-bag," Barbara was saying, at the same moment,in the room beyond. "And you can bring out your old ribbon-box for thebowing-up, Rosamond. It's a charity to clear out your glory-holes oncein a while. It's going to be just--splend-umphant!"

"If you don't go and talk about it," said Rosamond. "We _must_ keepthe new of it to ourselves."

"As if I needed!" cried Barbara, indignantly. "When I hushed up HarryGoldthwaite, and went round all the rest of the evening without doinganything but just give you that awful little pinch!"

"That was bad enough," said Rosamond, quietly; she never got cross orinelegantly excited about anything. "But I _do_ think the girls willlike it. And we might have tea out on the broad piazza."

"That is bare floor too," said Barbara, mischievously.

Now, our dining-room had not yet even the English drugget. The darknew boards would do for summer weather, mother said. "If it had beenreal oak, polished!" Rosamond thought. "But hard-pine was kitcheny."

Ruth went to bed with the rest of her thinking and the brook-musicflittering in her brain.

Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks had talked behind her with Jeannie Hadden abouther playing. It was not the compliment that excited her so, althoughthey said her touch and expression were wonderful, and that herfingers were like little flying magnets, that couldn't miss the rightpoints. Jeannie Hadden said she liked to _see_ Ruth Holabird play, aswell as she did to hear her.

But it was Mrs. Marchbanks's saying that she would give almostanything to have Lily taught such a style; she hardly knew what sheshould do with her; there was no good teacher in the town who gavelessons at the houses, and Lily was not strong enough to go regularlyto Mr. Viertelnote. Besides, she had picked up a story of his beingcross, and rapping somebody's fingers, and Lily was very shy andsensitive. She never did herself any justice if she began to beafraid.

Jeannie Hadden said it was just her mother's trouble about Reba,except that Reba was strong enough; only that Mrs. Hadden preferred ateacher to come to the house.

"A good young-lady teacher, to give beginners a desirable style fromthe very first, is exceedingly needed since Miss Robbyns went away,"said Mrs. Marchbanks, to whom just then her sister came and saidsomething, and drew her off.

Ruth's fingers flew over the keys; and it must have been magnetismthat guided them, for in her brain quite other quick notes werestruck, and ringing out a busy chime of their own.

"If I only could!" she was saying to herself. "If they really wouldhave me, and they would let me at home. Then I could go to Mr.Viertelnote. I think I could do it! I'm almost sure! I could showanybody what I know,--and if they like that!"

It went over and over now, as she lay wakeful in bed, mixed up withthe "forever--ever," and the dropping tinkle of that lovely tremblingripple of accompaniment, until the late moon got round to the southand slanted in between the white dimity curtains, and set a glimmeringlittle ghost in the arm-chair.

Ruth came down late to breakfast.

Barbara was pushing back her chair.

"Mother,--or anybody! Do you want any errand down in town? I'm goingout for a stramble. A party always has to be walked off next morning."

"Well, I dare say I shall go in and see Leslie. Rosamond, why can'tyou come too? It's a sort of nuisance that boy having come home!"

"That 'great six-foot lieutenant'!" parodied Rose.

"I don't care! You said feet didn't signify. And he used to be a boy,when we played with him so."

"I suppose they all used to be," said Rose, demurely.

"Well, I won't go! Because the truth is I did want to see him, aboutthose--patent rights. I dare say they'll come up."

"I've no doubt," said Rosamond.

"I wish you _would_ both go away somewhere," said Ruth, as Mrs.Holabird gave her her coffee. "Because I and mother have got a secret,and I know she wants her last little hot corner of toast."

"I think you are likely to get the last little cold corner," said Mrs.Holabird, as Ruth sat, forgetting her plate, after the other girls hadgone away.

"I'm thinking, mother, of a real warm little corner! Something thatwould just fit in and make everything so nice. It was put into my headlast night, and I think it was sent on purpose; it came right upbehind me so. Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks and Jeannie Hadden praised myplaying; more than I could tell you, really; and Mrs. Marchbankswants a--" Ruth stopped, and laughed at the word that wascoming--"_lady_-teacher for Lily, and so does Mrs. Hadden for Reba.There, mother. It's in _your_ head now! Please turn it over with anice little think, and tell me you would just as lief, and that youbelieve perhaps I could!"

By this time Ruth was round behind Mrs. Holabird's chair, with her twohands laid against her cheeks. Mrs. Holabird leaned her face down uponone of the hands, holding it so, caressingly.

"I am sure you could, Ruthie. But I am sure I _wouldn't_ just as lief!I would liefer you should have all you need without."

"I know that, mother. But it wouldn't be half so good for me!"

"That's something horrid, I know!" exclaimed Barbara, coming in uponthe last word. "It always is, when people talk about its being goodfor them. It's sure to be salts or senna, and most likely both."

"O dear me!" said Ruth, suddenly seized with a new perception ofdifficulty. Until now, she had only been considering whether shecould, and if Mrs. Holabird would approve. "_Don't_ you--or Rose--callit names, Barbara, please, will you?"

"Which of us are you most afraid of? For Rosamond's salts and sennaare different from mine, pretty often. I guess it's hers this time, byyour putting her in that anxious parenthesis."

"I'm afraid of your fun, Barbara, and I'm afraid of Rosamond's--"

"Earnest? Well, that is much the more frightful. It is so awfullyquiet and pretty-behaved and positive. But if you're going to retainme on your side, you'll have to lay the case before me, you know, andgive me a fee. You needn't stand there, bribing the judge beforehand."

Ruth turned right round and kissed Barbara.

"I want you to go with me and see if Mrs. Hadden and Mrs. LewisMarchbanks would let me teach the children."

"Ruth, you're a duck! I like you for it! But I'm not sure I like_it_."

"Will you do just those two things?"

"It's a beautiful programme. But suppose we leave out the first part?I think you could do that alone. It would spoil it if I went. It'ssuch a nice little spontaneous idea of your own, you see. But if wemade it a regular family delegation--besides, it will take as much asall me to manage the second. Rosamond is very elegant to-day. Lastnight's twilight isn't over. And it's funny _we_'ve plans too; _we_'regoing to give lessons,--differently; we're going to lead off, foronce,--we Holabirds; and I don't know exactly how the music will chimein. It _may_ make things--Holabirdy."

Rosamond had true perceptions, and she was conscientious. What shesaid, therefore, when she was told, was,--

"O dear! I suppose it is right! But--just now! Right things do come inso terribly askew, like good old Mr. Isosceles, sidling up the broadaisle of a Sunday! Couldn't you wait awhile, Ruth?"

Ruth went off, laughing, happy. She knew she had gamed the home-halfof her point.

Her heart beat a good deal, though, when she went into Mrs.Marchbanks's library alone, and sat waiting for the lady to come down.

She would rather have gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind andold-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had herjustification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and shemust take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clewright end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she hadhappened to think of it.

"Good morning," said the great lady, graciously, wondering not alittle what had brought the child, in this unceremonious earlyfashion, to ask for her.

"I came," said Ruth, after she had answered the good morning, "becauseI heard what you were so kind as to say last night about liking myplaying; and that you had nobody just now to teach Lily. I thought,perhaps, you might be willing to try me; for I should like to do it,and I think I could show her all I know; and then I could take lessonsmyself of Mr. Viertelnote. I've been thinking about it all night."

Ruth Holabird had a direct little fashion of going straight throughwhatever crust of outside appearance to that which must respond towhat she had at the moment in herself. She had real _self-possession_;because she did not let herself be magnetized into a falseconsciousness of somebody else's self, and think and speak accordingto their notions of things, or her reflected notion of what they wouldthink of her. She was different from Rosamond in this; Rosamond couldnot help _feeling her double_,--Mrs. Grundy's "idea" of her. That waswhat Rosamond said herself about it, when Ruth told it all at home.

The response is almost always there to those who go for it; if it isnot, there is no use any way.

Mrs. Marchbanks smiled.

"Does Mrs. Holabird know?"

"O yes; she always knows."

There was a little distance and a touch of business in Mrs.Marchbanks's manner after this. The child's own impulse had been veryfrank and amusing; an authorized seeking of employment was somewhatdifferent. Still, she was kind enough; the impression had been made;perhaps Rosamond, with her "just now" feeling, would have beensensitive to what did not touch Ruth, at the moment, at all.

"But you see, my dear, that _your_ having a pupil could not be quiteequal to Mr. Viertelnote's doing the same thing. I mean the one wouldnot quite provide for the other."

"O no, indeed! I'm in hopes to have two. I mean to go and see Mrs.Hadden about Reba; and then I might begin first, you know. If I couldteach two quarters, I could take one."

"You have thought it all over. You are quite a little business woman.Now let us see. I do like your playing, Ruth. I think you have reallya charming style. But whether you could _impart_ it,--that is adifferent capacity."

"I am pretty good at showing how," said Ruth. "I think I could makeher understand all I do."

"Well; I should be willing to pay twenty dollars a quarter to any ladywho would bring Lily forward to where you are; if you can do it, Iwill pay it to you. If Mrs. Hadden will do the same, you will have twothirds of Viertelnote's price."

"O, that is so nice!" said Ruth, gratefully. "Then in half a quarter Icould begin. And perhaps in that time I might get another."

"I shall be exceedingly interested in your getting on," said Mrs.Marchbanks, as Ruth arose to go. She said it very much as she mighthave said it to anybody who was going to try to earn money, and whomshe meant to patronize. But Ruth took it singly; she was not twopersons,--one who asked for work and pay, and another who expected tobe treated as if she were privileged above either. She was quiteintent upon her purpose.

If Mrs. Marchbanks had been patron kind, Mrs. Hadden was motherly so.

"You're a dear little thing! When will you begin?" said she.

Ruth's morning was a grand success. She came home with a rapid step,springing to a soundless rhythm.

She found Rosamond and Barbara and Harry Goldthwaite on the piazza,winding the rope rings with blue and scarlet and white and purple, andtying them with knots of ribbon.

Harry had been prompt enough. He had got the rope, and spliced it uphimself, that morning, and had brought the ten rings over, hangingupon his arms like bangles.

They were still busy when dinner was ready; and Harry stayed at thefirst asking.

It was a scrub-day in the kitchen; and Katty came in to take theplates with her sleeves rolled up, a smooch of stove-polish across herarm, and a very indiscriminate-colored apron. She put one plate uponanother in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered agood deal, and dropped the salt-spoons.

Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutelybeautiful repose.

Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to comenext day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with alittle gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in thebrown room with tears in her eyes.

"It is dreadful to live so!" she said, with real feeling. "To havejust one wretched girl to do everything!"

"Especially," said Barbara, without much mercy, "when she always_will_ do it at dinner-time."

"It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear," said Rose. "To haveto do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and tosee their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfectserving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life'(that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); andthen to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what oughtto be as she does,--it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather notknow, or pretend any better. I do wish we _belonged_ somewhere!"

Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with thesethings. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what wasbeautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it_every day_, and that nobody hated shams, or company contrivances,more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they werequite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better thanwhen guests came and divided her attention.

Ruth went over to where she sat.

"Rose, perhaps we _do_ belong just here. Somebody has got to be in theshading-off, you know. That helps both ways."

"It's a miserable indefiniteness, though."

"No, it isn't," said Barbara, quickly. "It's a good plan, and I likeit. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines.'You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. Andpeople that are _right_ in the middle have to 'toe the mark.' It's theedge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixtand between. And one girl needn't _always_ be black-leaded, nor dropall the spoons."

CHAPTER IV.

NEXT THINGS.

Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itselfinto Rosamond's party, although Barbara had had the first thought ofit; for Rosamond quietly took the management of all that was to bedelicately and gracefully arranged, and to have the true tone of highpropriety.

Barbara made the little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up thecake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it wastime, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave allsorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table(the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, andreplaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the cornerbetween the southwest windows that opened upon the broad piazza.

The table was bright with pretty silver--not too much--and best glassand delicate porcelain with a tiny thread of gold; and the rolls andthe thin strips of tongue cut lengthwise, so rich and tender that afork could manage them, and the large raspberries, black and red andwhite, were upon plates and dishes of real Indian, white and goldenbrown.

The wide sashes were thrown up, and there were light chairs outside;Mrs. Holabird would give the guests tea and coffee, and Ruth andBarbara would sit in the window-seats and do the waiting, back andforth, and Dakie Thayne and Harry Goldthwaite would help.

Katty held her office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly,forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonderswithout realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throubleat ahl to have company."

But before the tea was the new game.

It was a bold stroke for us Holabirds. Originating was usually donehigher up; as the Papal Council gives forth new spiritual inventionsfor the joyful acceptance of believers, who may by no means invent intheir turn and offer to the Council. One could hardly tell how itwould fall out,--whether the Haddens and the Marchbankses would taketo it, or whether it would drop right there.

"They _may_ 'take it off your hands, my dear,'" suggested theremorseless Barbara. Somebody had offered to do that once for Mrs.Holabird, when her husband had had an interest in a ship in the Baltictrade, and some furs had come home, richer than we had quite expected.

Rose was loftily silent; she would not have _said_ that to her veryself; but she had her little quiet instincts of holding on,--throughHarry Goldthwaite, chiefly; it was his novelty.

Does this seem _very_ bare worldly scheming among young girls whoshould simply have been having a good time? We should not tell you ifwe did not know; it _begins_ right there among them, in just suchthings as these; and our day and our life are full of it.

The Marchbanks set had a way of taking things off people's hands, assoon as they were proved worth while. People like the Holabirds couldnot be taking this pains every day; making their cakes and theircoffee, and setting their tea-table in their parlor; putting aside allthat was shabby or inadequate, for a few special hours, and turningall the family resources upon a point, to serve an occasion. But ifanything new or bright were so produced that could be transplanted, itwas so easy to receive it among the established and every-dayelegances of a freer living, give it a wider introduction, and soadopt and repeat and centralize it that the originators should fairlyforget they had ever begun it. And why would not this be honor enough?Invention must always pass over to the capital that can handle it.

The new game charmed them all. The girls had the best of it, for theyoung men always gathered up the rings and brought them to each inturn. It was very pretty to receive both hands full of the gaylywreathed and knotted hoops, to hold them slidden along one arm likegarlands, to pass them lightly from hand to hand again, and to tossthem one by one through the air with a motion of more or lessinevitable grace; and the excitement of hope or of success grew witheach succeeding trial.

They could not help liking it, even the most fastidious; they mightventure upon liking it, for it was a game with an origin andreferences. It was an officers' game, on board great naval ships; ithad proper and sufficient antecedents. It would do.

By the time they stopped playing in the twilight, and went up the wideend steps upon the deep, open platform, where coffee and biscuitsbegan to be fragrant, Rosamond knew that her party was as nice as ifit had been anybody's else whoever; that they were all having asgenuinely good a time as if they had not come "westover" to get it.

And everybody does like a delicious tea, such as is far more sure andvery different from hands like Mrs. Holabird's and her daughters, thanfrom those of a city confectioner and the most professed of privatecooks.

It all went off and ended in a glory,--the glory of the sun pouringgreat backward floods of light and color all up to the summer zenith,and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slowforth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and bythey had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. Itwas the one magnificence of their house,--this high, spacious terrace;Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird _had_ tobuild the wood-house under it.

After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than ourhome, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able tobecome before.

They might have transplanted the game,--they did take slips fromit,--and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; butthey could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They_would_ come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, andpractise "coil," or make some other plan or errand; and so there cameto be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the othergirls wanted it, they had to come where it was.

Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her.

Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "theHolabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark didnot come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile theposition remained the same.

It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the familyagain, one evening.

"I wish," she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggestingsomething utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could askLucilla Waters up here for a little visit."

The girls had a way, in Z----, of spending two or three days togetherat each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach,and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up tothe Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddenswould stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day,and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees ofintimacy: that which took tea,--that which came in of a morning andstayed to lunch,--and that which was kept over night without plan orceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do suchthings without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed tous sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so asthat we might.

Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamondsuggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing howto dispose of the thought since she had got it.

Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs.Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some prettyknitting,--making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten himat the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intentthought.

She made up her mind presently,--partly at least,--and spoke again. "Idon't believe," she said, "that it would be the next thing for ArcturaFish."

Dakie Thayne's eyebrows went up, just that half perceptible line ortwo. "Do you think people ought always to have the next thing?" heasked.

"It seems to me it must be somebody's fault if they don't," repliedRuth.

"It is a long waiting sometimes to get the next thing," said DakieThayne. "Army men find that out. They grow gray getting it."

"That's where only one _can_ have it at a time," said Ruth. "Thesethings are different."